Cover Stories: Transworld stalwart turns turns agent; Emma Tennant

Maia Press, the doughty independent run by Maggie Hamand and Jane Havell, is publishing two novels by Emma Tennant. One of the Tennant family of English eccentrics, Emma has been round the houses in her time with memoirs and fiction. Next month, Maia issues Tennant's The Harp Lesson, which takes its cue from an 18th-century ancestor who rose from humble origins to the French court. Maia is, like Arcadia, an indie which punches above its weight and also offers a haven for writers shut out of larger houses by the short-sighted policies of major retailers and publishers.